David Johnson

In my attempt to read more, I have put a book in the glove compartment of my car. I am not the fastest of readers, and find that I do not have a lot of time to read - perhaps a few pages before turning off the light at night. Other opportunities are grabbed here and there…and that was the motivation for the book in the glove compartment idea.

No, I do not intend to read and drive. However, perhaps after going into a store, I’ll stop for a moment and read a few pages? Or maybe I will tie in a lunch break instead of rushing home, pulling over in a park or beside the road to munch on a sandwich and read a few pages?

I just figured that maybe with a book nearby, when I am out and about, it might engender in me a new habit and find me taking time to read. I believe that the time is there, even if I convince myself otherwise at times, I just have to find those opportunities. I say to people who struggle finding time to meditate, that the time is there, you just have to be creative and look for time. Now I a throwing that back at myself and looking at reading. Yes, the time might not be what I ideally want, but it will be something.

Now I just have to remember that the book is in the car!

As I journal and reflect on the Medicine Walk that I went on last Monday, I am reminded of the importance of some digital tools that I make use of to help prevent me from getting caught up in the digital world. I thought that I would share them here with you should you also want to explore moments of mindful stepping back while engaging in your digital life.

Before I go any further, I just want to mention a couple of things:

• First I want to say that I receive nothing for mentioning the applications that I speak of here. They are simply tools that I have found online and that have been of great help to me.
• Second, and this is quite important, these apps will have no effect if you do not start them up in the first place. Now that might sound quite obvious, but the mind is tricky and sometimes forgetful, and you can always convince yourself that you do not need to take any breaks this time. So until you get into a habit of using them, find someway to remind yourself. For example, on a Mac you can set applications to start when the computer starts up.

Thich Naht Hanh

The Zen Master Thich Naht Hanh speaks of the Bell of Mindfulness. When the bell sounds it brings us back to the present moment. We stop what we are doing, take three conscious breaths, and then return to our activity. The bell can be a purposely sounded gong. At talk and retreats given by Thay, as he is affectionately known, a Bell of Mindfulness is sounded at regular intervals even if Thay is talking. The Bell can also be the brake lights of the car in front of you, the telephone ringing or a dog barking. It can be whatever stops you in that moment.

In Thich Naht Hanh’s tradition he makes use of gathas, short poems, to help us with our mindfulness practice. One that I find particularly helpful when I pause and take three breaths is this one, 

Breathing in I calm my body,  
Breathing out I smile.  
Breathing in I calm my body,  
Breathing out I smile.  
Breathing in the present moment,  
I know that it is a wonderful moment.

or a shorter one,

In - I know that I am breathing in.
Out - I know that I am breathing out.

Software

Mac Apps

Some enterprising software writers have created applications that in their own way create a Bell of Mindfulness, allowing you to stop your digital activity, breathe, stretch and then return to your work. The purpose behind some of these apps is to prevent physical injury such as hunch shoulders, but they can also be used as your own personal Bell.

I make use of the Apple platform for both my desktop and mobile digital life, but hopefully for those who are interested in using these tools but are not Apple users, these applicationss will give you a starting point for research into similar apps for your platform. A couple of these apps, are actually platform independent and make use of web browsers. Some are free, and some cost a few dollars.

• Time Out Free - This was the first application of this type that I ever used. There are many variables that you can set within the application, but in essence after a predefined period of time the app will disable the keyboard, for a period of time of your choosing. You can then just breathe, stretch, take a walk, or go and make a cup of tea. I have always said that the completion of my Masters paper was in part because of this app. Productivity doesn’t just come from just keeping going.
• Pauses - This application is very similar to Time Out Free. A simpler version with a few less options, but no less effective.
• Mindful Mynah - My current go to application for taking a break is very simple in its operation. At a predetermined interval the application will sound a tone. There are a selection of sounds so that you can choose one conducive for you. That is it. No disabled keyboards, just a tone.
• Freedom - This app does not disable the keyboard…it disables the internet! You set how long that you wish to be offline and then once you have pressed the start button the only way to re-enable the internet before your time is up is to restart your computer. Great for those writing projects. Available on PCs.
• Anti-Social - Written by the same company that produced Freedom, Anti-Social will disable access to your social media feeds only, or individual websites that you choose. No more continual checking to see how many ‘Likes’ you have received for your last post when you should be concentrating on something else. 

iPhone Apps

• Mindful Mynah - This is an iPhone version of the Mac app of the same name mentioned above. Useful if you just want a mindfulness bell at hand while working on non-digital projects.
• Calm Button - By the same author as Mindful Mynah, this app bills itself as “Anxiety Relief • Breath Trainer.” I find it very effective for slowing you down, quieting the mind and bringing you back to now. Spend as long as you need with it.
• Samsara - Although this is not mindfulness bell but a meditation timer, I have included it here as it is a timer that I use and like because of it’s simplicity. It will also work when the iPhone is in airplane mode and sounds are turned off, allowing no intrusion from other apps or someone calling you.

Browser Extension

• Bell of Mindfulness - This extension is available for Chrome based browsers such as Google Chrome, and as such it is independent of the platform, Mac or PC, that it is run on.

Search, Explore

We are all of different dispositions. What works for me might not work for you. However, if you are interested in exploring having access to a Bell of Mindfulness in your digital life and these apps don’t quite fit, explore and test out others. Google and other search engines are of course one place to start your search. For those in the Apple world, try MacUpdate or the Mac App Store as well.

If you are using a digital Bell of Mindfulness, what application are you using?

Update - March 22, 2019

I am currently using Rest Time on my MacBook Air, my main computer, to manage my work and rest time. I find it simple, unobtrusive and with the features that I need. There is a two week free trial. Give it a spin.

See if this rings true for you? You’ve just got off a telephone call or are out of a meeting where something was said to you that felt like a blow to the solar plexus. However, you barely have time to come up for air and take stock of the situation when your schedule calls you to your next appointment.

So you are sitting in your next appointment trying to stay focused on the people and task at hand, but that last conversation is banging at the door and won’t leave you alone. How do you handle this situation until you have time to give the troublesome conversation your attention?

The Pink Floyd song, “Hey You” from their album  The Wall has the lyric,

and the worms ate into your brain.

That unhappy line is followed by sounds that perfectly conjure up the image of something niggling away at your mind, insidiously aggravating you with its presence. A mass of wriggling worms feels to me like the perfect analogy (with all due respect to worms).

The world of mindfulness and Buddhist meditation speaks a lot about being present to now, to what is going on in the present moment. We are advised that, “the past has gone, the future is yet to come, now is the knowing.” This is sound advice and bears constant reflection. It is easy to discount its wisdom as it is not an easy instruction to live by. However, whether it is easy or not is not reason to discard it. Some of what is most worthwhile requires of us our deepest effort. That being said, when there has been a deep blow to us the best laid plans can seem a distant stretch. At such times we can easily find ourselves craving distractions of assurance and comfort over trying to keep the noises at bay.

Sharing an experience

Earlier this week I had an experience similar to what I have described here. I put the phone down feeling winded, sent an email to a friend just to share and offload, and then headed to my qigong class. Engaging in a meditative exercise certainly helped. It was easier to cope with than a busy meeting, but I was still yearning for some alone time to process the worms that were eating into my brain. As we moved on with the class, and as the noise from the phone call crept into my mind, I kept bringing myself back to the qigong practice. That noise after all was just a series of thoughts, given substance by the attention that I gave to them. Slowly the noises quietened. They never completely went away, although there were moments when I forgot about the call as I became more focused on the qigong. That in itself shows that the mental voices only react to the power that we give to them.

With the class over I could feel the ripples from my earlier call build again, and I went home to reflect on its implications. But the words also made me reflect on the words of the eighth century Indian Buddhist saint Shatideva who said,

There is nothing at all which cannot become easier through practice.

Meditation

Meditation can be a deceptive practice. The instruction is simple yet the practice requires commitment and perseverance to experience the results. Meditation is not an escape into a quiet world (though at times there might be good reason to use it for that). Rather it is a familiarization with a world that many of us do not visit, our own minds. It is a familiarization with and retraining for how we interact with what arises in the mind.

Aided with a motivation or reason for being on the cushion, with time you can start to experience the workable nature of the mind. The worms might still knock at the door of your brain, but you realize that you don’t have to let them in. Acknowledge them, say “Hi,” and let them go on their merry way. This starts on your cushion but with time and familiarization this practice creeps into your daily life. You are deepening your awareness and creating new habits in your mind. These efforts are felt in your own life and ripple out into the world around you.

I’ll have to ask you to fill in the blanks on this one. I am writing about extroverts and introverts, but any dualism can be exchanged in replacement for these opposites. This article is primarily about awareness, a tool that is central to meditation practice. I’d also like to suggest that it is central to our interaction with others and in that vein it is also a post in support of introverts.

Awareness

Within meditation practice, awareness is that little watcher in our minds that keeps an eye on where the focus of our mind is. In there is a paradox - it is faculty of the mind that keeps an eye on what the mind is doing. Are we staying with the object of meditation or have we wavered onto some more pressing - of course our meditation practice is important but once we ask our mind to focus, the subject of what we are going to eat for breakfast or that afternoon meeting suddenly becomes more interesting.

So awareness watches and catches us when we stray from the object of meditation and gently brings us back. In our everyday life awareness is like a self-policing. Do we know the full story of what is going on here? Are we responding appropriately to this situation? Awareness is continually asking of us to ask deeper questions. Do we have the full picture here? I’ll explore this from a perspective on the extrovert/introvert interaction…from the introvert perspective. But first bicycles.

Bicycling

I enjoy cycling. I enjoying cycling not as a sport but as a recreational cyclist. I own a couple of bicycles for getting around. My trusty work horse is a Brompton a British designed, fold-up bike that gets me around the city of Portland. For longer recreational rides I have a Specialized road bike. The Specialized has twenty gears, the Brompton, six. The Brompton is a good strong bicycle but it does make me work harder on the hills, longer rides and pedaling against the wind. I jump on the  carbon fibre Specialized and suddenly cycling becomes like putting a hot knife through butter - effortless.

When you are on a bike there are hills, and there are hills. Some of the regular hills are so gradual that if you are in a car you probably don’t even notice them. However, for the cyclist the gradual incline soon works its way into your muscles. You might choose to take a break while riding the incline, find yourself panting for breath at the barely perceptible top and wearily free wheeling down the other side, having little inclination to pedal but a wish to rest those tired legs. Because of the time taken pedaling up the hill you might take in some details of the route traversed, the sites passed, the smells in the air.

The car driver however, through no fault of their own, does not recognize the hill. The car strains little if at all. You are soon at the top, quite possibly not even recognizing or registering it as a ‘top,’ and carry on with your journey. The awareness is not there of a hill having been traveled along, or the details of the journey itself.

The Monkey Mind

I use this to illustrate the unintended lack of awareness that extroverts can bring to the needs of introverts. This article is not about “never ending introvert suffering”! Indeed we can all bring a lack of awareness to anything that is not a major player in our own lives. No, the intention here is simply awareness, or lack of - whether it is from introverts to extroverts, vise versa or between those blanks that you filled in at the beginning.

Without an awareness of the needs of introverts to have some quiet time to recharge. Without an awareness of introverts ability to make informed decisions though maybe taking longer over it. Without an awareness for introverts working better on their own or in small, like minded groups. Without this awareness, the needs of introverts are not understood and introverts can be looked on from a critical, ‘less than’ perspective and in doing so skills and opportunities be overlooked.

From the meditation perspective awareness is what catches the mind from running off in its own dialogue and brings us back to the object of meditation. Without awareness in our meditation we get lost in the mind’s games and word plays. We need awareness to keep us focused, keep us on track and for the meditation to be of benefit. A meditation session with no awareness just becomes a spaced out session, just sitting back and watching the mind’s show. I’m not suggesting that you have to be completely focused 100% of the time, far from it. Meditation is that moment where you do catch yourself.

Many people do not realize that they have this monkey mind, charging off in all directions and we consequently become a slave to our minds. Without this awareness to the needs of the introverts or whoever the different groups are in your life, our interactions become reactions that are based in our old habits and beliefs.

Stop, breathe, look, ask.

In the last article we looked at scenarios where you find yourself becoming overwhelmed. That is you are at an event, whether business or social, and you start to notice a creeping sensation of exhaustion enveloping you. There might be pain involved, physical or mental, and consequently you have to muster all of your strength just to stay present.

If you have the opportunity to excuse yourself and leave, you are free. You can go home, take a walk, or do whatever you need to do in that moment to recharge. If however circumstances dictate that you have to stay around and be involved, you are going to need some resources to draw on - and I am not talking about a stiff drink, though some may choose that.

For the introverts reading this I’m sure that you can relate to this experience, though I am not just writing this for introverts among us. We can all find ourselves in situations where we are called to be engaged, but our body and mind are screaming for us to take a time out. In those situations, whoever you are, you need something to keep yourself afloat and present.

The last post looked at the meditation technique of “breathing through.” This article will look at mindfulness.

Mindfulness is about bringing a presence of mind to what you are feeling now - what is arising in this moment? However at the same time you are not getting involved with the thoughts or sensations that are here now. I mentioned last time about using breathing through in everyday situations, but also giving yourself some solitary practice time, quiet meditation. Here we will look at the solitary practice first. This is because the mind responds well to constant familiarization, indeed the Tibetan word for meditation, göm, means to become familiar with. Through this when you find yourself in certain situations you respond in a way congruent with a trained mind as opposed to falling back into old habits. That might sound dry, but that is what meditation is enabling you to do - to familiarize yourself with states of mind - focus, love, patience.

So find a quiet and safe place to sit where you will be undisturbed. Make yourself comfortable. Then start quieting the mind by bringing your attention to the breath. Not a forced breath, but the simple sensation of the breath entering and leaving the nose. The mind will wander, for sure, but don’t scold yourself, just gently bring yourself back to this awareness as though you are a silent observer. The observing mind will wander off with regularity - no matter, just gently come back to the breath.

When the mind has settled start to observe your thoughts. Don’t get involved with them, just watch. You are not aiming to silence the mind, though that might happen briefly, so don’t start setting yourself goals. Rather you are simply observing your thoughts. An analogy might be looking out of a window at the scenery; you are not involved, just watching. As you watch you’ll notice that all these thoughts follow a similar pattern - arise, hang around for a bit, and then dissolve away. With the mind being the precursor to all our actions, this familiarity with the nature of what is passing through the mind has implications for how we experience and act in our lives. We’ll explore this by looking at our overwhelm scenarios.

Transitioning back to our party or business meeting where tiredness is creeping up on you, ask yourself how is that tiredness manifesting - weariness, aching, heavy eyes, other? Notice those feelings. I’m sure that there are moments when you are not talking, when you are not so involved so that you have that space to be with yourself. Observe those feelings and thoughts, see their transitory nature and allow them to go. A second later they will probably show up again, but once more just let them pass by. Observe that feeling of overwhelm and let it go. Part of what causes us discomfort is feeling as though these thoughts and feelings are solid, but they are not. Moment to moment they are changing. Recognizing the nature of these sensations and their corresponding thoughts allow us to let go of them more easily. From this we can develop some mental space to be with that which we don’t like. In short, the situation becomes more workable.

I offer these two techniques, breathing through and mindfulness, in the hope that they can offer you some respite when life is becoming difficult for you. If you choose to try them out, don’t expect to see instant results, and at the same time don’t give up too easily. Our mind is habituated into ways of being and essentially we are trying to retrain it. That takes time. Be easy on yourself.

Having said all of that, do use common sense. If things are just getting too much, do what you have to do to make things right for you.

This is the first part of a two part article exploring ways of helping yourself when you feel that you are hitting overwhelm. While written from my experiences as an introvert, these techniques are applicable to anyone. We all have our limits. When we reach them if we are still called to act, we need ways to keep ourselves afloat and stay focused.

Here are some scenarios:

• You’ve had a long day, the conference has been very interesting but perhaps your stimulation levels have maxed out. Though you’d much prefer to retire to your hotel room, there is still the evening session to go.
• The party is still going strong. You’ve had a good evening, met up with a number of old friends, made some new ones but are feeling exhausted now. You’d like to leave, but your partner wants to stay a while longer.
• It’s been a day of hard negotiations with various challenges to deal with coming in from all sides, sometimes unexpectedly. You can see the end in sight, but you are not there yet. You are going to have to muster all your will power to stay with the process.

Do any of these ring true for you? I’d guess that within the outlines there is a seed of something that you have experienced. What do you do when mind and body are screaming “I want to leave,” but you know that the situation requires of you to hang in there a bit longer - and not only that, full presence is required?

In these situations we have two conflicting voices inside ourselves shouting for attention. On the one hand there is the body and mind that is exhausted and wants to go home to put their feet up, and on the other is the external situation that is demanding your undivided attention. While not denying your tiredness, and honestly responding to it where the need justifies, we need some way of acknowledging but keeping at bay the tired voice while allowing ourselves to muster all the strength that we can to be present to the task at hand.

When in such situations I have found a couple of practices to be of great help. They are both meditation practices and can happen without the knowledge of anyone around you, thus not getting in the way of what it is you are doing. In this context do not see meditation as something that happens in a quiet room while you are sitting on a chair or cushion. There can be that side to these practices, and we shall touch on them. Rather look on these as tools that you can take with you into the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Tools that take up no room, but are always with you.

In this post I shall look at the practice of “Breathing Through.”

With breathing through you are being purposefully present to the struggle or emotion that you are dealing with. When you feel overwhelm it becomes something palpable to your experience. As the sense of overwhelm hits you, imagine that you are breathing it into yourself through your nose. Breathe this overwhelm down into you and through your heart, allowing it to dissolve as it passed through your heart. Imagine your heart cradling and holding the pain and discomfort that you are feeling, and in doing so the tension and weariness that you perceive dissolves away. At times in doing this you could well notice resistance as you breathe in the overwhelm, the emotion not making it to your heart. This comes from our old habits, for example not wanting to deal with the pain or being use to calling it a day once the exhaustion presents itself. Acknowledge the resistance and breathe in the discomfort again. The capacity of the heart for holding pain is limitless. With time that which was difficult will become possible.

This practice allows you to increase your capacity to hold that which is difficult. Its intention is not to make you like something that you previously disliked, though that may happen as well, but increase your capacity to be with discomfort. As that capacity increases so you will be able to give more of yourself to the party, meeting or whatever it is you are being called to stay ‘overtime’ for.

Time spent rehearsing this practice in quiet meditation can be very beneficial. Sit comfortably, whether on a chair or cushion, and bring to mind a situation that you have found uncomfortable. As you breathe in, breathe in that discomfort bringing it down to your heart and allowing it to dissolve. Again when resistance arises allow it to be there, don’t fight it, and return to breathing in that overwhelm. By spending your own quiet time practicing this meditation, you will be more familiar with the approach when the real life situation arises. As the Zen Master Thich Naht Hanh has said, “meditation is not an escape from life … but preparation for really being in life.”

In the next article we shall look at the practice of mindfulness and how it can enable the holding of discomfort.